Schedule Weirdness and General Life Update (Patreon)

Hey, ya'll. I'm gonna try to make this a general update for things that have been going on with me. There's been a lot of scheduling oddities with my work and stream schedule lately that has left me pretty haggard and I'm having trouble sleeping lately because of it. Stress is high right now and I don't have much time to decompress. Here's why:

House Hunting

Some of you who are regulars in my public and patron streams probably know already, but my husband and I have been shopping for our first home for the past 4 weeks or so. It's been particularly more stressful than it normally would have been because of my work schedule.

See, I didn't plan for us to start this process when we did, and the way my work scheduling worked out, and trips that were planned in advance, just made kind of a perfect storm of a stressed bun with little free time on his hands. My dog isn't happy about this either because he's had very little play time because of it. :P Poor lil' guy. But he's been very patient.

Anyway, I had scheduled out my work and our two trips (FWA and BLFC) back in January, and so I'm pretty much locked in to what I've got on my plate. Our lease here at our current place is up in just a couple months, and with our decision to finally get a house, that's sorta what has me squeezing in all sorts of house-related business whenever I'm off the clock. We don't want to be stuck getting another lease signed so we're hoping that everything goes well, or we can go month-to-month if possible.

Trying to give myself a little freedom with an hour or two of gaming here and there though, so I don't go crazy. XD 'Bout to finally finish Yooka-Laylee, hooray! :D

Stream Scheduling and Roommates Comic/Series Work

Here's the stream schedule as it stands right now, in Pacific time. What you don't see are my work days or other personal matters, though. Those are always on a different calendar only I can see. When I mentioned I scheduled for most of the year back in January, I didn't account for time for house hunting...

Also, I was really trying to squeeze in everyone who had asked and anticipated stream commissions with me so they wouldn't have to wait more than... well, a year. So I kinda screwed myself in terms of having some time on my hands by working 6 or 7 days a week some weeks. I keep telling myself I'm gonna stop doing this shit but it keeps happening. XD So, after all this is over, I'm gonna try to really stick to no more than 5 days to work a week, split between streams for public and patrons, and commissions.

Because of all that, I've had to cut out a few Roommates stream days for April and May to make sure I can fit everything in. I had done so back in January, but it really has felt like I haven't been able to do much planning for the comic or the side-series' we have planned in tandem, even in the meantime. I just wanted to say that it won't be like this forever, for those of you who have been patiently waiting specifically for more additions to the Roommates canon.

I hope you've been enjoying the Rule 34 and Roommates pinups in the meantime, though. I know I have been having a nice time working on those. It's therapeutic to be able to try new things with my style and make fully colored images at my own pace.

Art Identity and Experimentation

Speaking of that, I'll use that as a segue to talk about how I've been feeling about my art lately. I'm trying to find something new to do with coloring, hence the experimentation with the pinups lately in terms of their coloring. I really want to step my game up and it's going to take some heavy experimentation and practice while I figure out what I want to do with my art.

I will admit that coloring has always been something that takes me out of my comfort zone, but I want to get over that and really make it far more normal and free-flowing if possible. I'm doing some soul searching with my painting, as it were, and I'm steadily figuring things out. I've been looking at process and methods from a few of my favorite artists in our fandom right now whom I look up to, and I think it's helping. I am definitely making some headway, but it's a slow learning process, as art stuff usually tends to be.

What's weird about it is that I'm not a stranger to digital painting. I've done it several times before (just not super often), but every time it brings me out of my comfort zone whenever I get down to it. I don't know how much part of that comes from my anxiety, or my personal strive to better myself, or just the self-criticism that most artists do to themselves, but I am determined to overcome it and I want to be better. I am really trying. It's still therapeutic in it's own odd way, though, haha!

I want to seriously thank you all for sticking around and going through this art journey with me while I try new things out and really make full illustrations to the best of my ability with my pinups. Thank you, truly. <3

And I think that's about all I had to share... it also helped get some of my thoughts out in words, ease some of my stress a little by just talking about it. So, thanks for reading if you made it down here this far. :) Have a good one~